


(i can't help it) if all the world is ending

by eclenic



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: (so same as the source material basically), AU, Action/Adventure, Conspiracy, F/M, More tags to be added, Romance, Science Fiction, implied consent issues, like 50/50 on serious plot to personal shenanigans, sometimes these are the same thing, the director is wrong, the director thinks they don't need a medic, the protocols are really more like guidelines, the travelers au nobody asked for, we're not going to be exploring that but it's there if you squint, you don't need to have seen the show though
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-03-09
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-14 04:55:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,842
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18045887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eclenic/pseuds/eclenic
Summary: Stanford University, California, 2018: At the precise moment of her historical death, history professor Lucy Preston is taken over by Traveler 5829 - a historian of a very different kind. Sent by a powerful AI from a distant, dystopian future where humans are all but extinct, the Traveler program is designed to avert humanity's biggest problems at their source - the 21st century.Taking on every aspect of Lucy's life, 5829's mission is simple: meet up with the rest of her team, receive their orders from the future, and save the world. Their first mission: save Connor Mason.It was never going to be that easy.





	(i can't help it) if all the world is ending

**Author's Note:**

> So...yeah. This happened. If you haven't watched the excellent Netflix series, I highly recommend you do for your own enjoyment, but I'll be walking you through a lot of the basics so you probably don't need to have seen it to be able to read this fic. If you have questions, leave them in a comment, or come hang out on tumblr - I'm drlucypreston - and I'll try to answer them one way or another.
> 
> For the curious, I generated everybody's Traveler numbers using the method Brad Wright posted on Twitter - first four letters of their name, as typed out on a phone keypad.
> 
> Our fic title comes from Shearwater's _Quiet Americans_.
> 
> This is probably one of the more complex things I've tried to write in some time, so I hope you enjoy it!

_Recorded time of death: 4:27pm_

It's an ordinary day at Stanford: the usual hustle and bustle, students flitting from class to class, grad students with armfuls of books, professors hurrying up the stairs to their classrooms. It’s a perfect late summer day, sun-dappled leaves moving gently in the breeze, little knots of students clustered every few feet on the lawns, the faint hum of chatter carrying through the air.

Down by the history department, Lucy Preston is about to die.

According to the historical record, it goes like this: while walking across campus one afternoon, she is struck by a car and killed instantly. A text message from her cell phone, timestamped 16:27:17, reads _Coming home now_. The first 911 call is at 16:27:28. In the police investigation that follows, data from the car puts the airbag deployment at 16:27:21. The corner where the accident happens sits at exactly 95.18 feet above sea level.

Time, Elevation, Latitude, Longitude. That's all that's needed.

What actually happens, on this day, is this: Lucy is still walking across the campus, cell phone in hand, when, exactly twenty seconds before the impact is supposed to happen, she is suddenly experiencing the worst headache she's ever had. Her knees buckle and she falls to the ground, clutching her skull and screaming - raw, a noise made entirely of agony, almost inhuman.

Then, just as abruptly, the headache stops. The screaming stops.

At that moment, across the street, an SUV blows through the stop sign, careens around the corner, and hits no-one at all.

She was warned what to expect when she arrived, but the reality is much more overwhelming. Sunlight feels different against her skin than she expected, and under her fingers, the concrete of the sidewalk is slightly warm. She runs her hand over it for a second, and takes a couple of deep breaths. There's a harsh smell in the air - gasoline and brake fluid and burnt rubber - but also something sweet and flowery, something she can't place until she looks up and sees the leaves swaying above her. _Pollen._ So that's what that smells like.

Then, she stands. She picks up the phone, a brand-new crack right across the screen, and looks down at it. _Coming home_ is what is written, is as far as Lucy Preston ever got, and she sighs and slips the phone into her pocket.

"Hey, Professor Preston, are you okay?"

She turns, and standing in front of her is a small gaggle of very concerned onlookers.

“Do I....”

"It's David, from your Modern American History class? We saw you fall... are you alright?"

"David, of course, sorry! I'm fine, really. I'm not sure what that was. But I feel fine."

That is, apparently, the wrong answer. One of the women steps forward, brow furrowed, and says, "I'm an EMT. Can I take a look?"

"Oh really, it's okay, I should go..."

"Please? I wouldn't feel right just letting you go. Really, you should go to the health centre, it's not far..."

David the concerned student looks back at her, and she sighs.

"Alright, but quickly. I'm already late."

————

Two streets over, another black SUV is sitting with the engine running. Inside, the mood of its three occupants is souring by the second, a prickly tension growing between them.

"She's late," the driver says, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel.

In the back seat, a laptop perched on his knees, is another man, and he stares at the screen, taps a few keys, then stares again. "There's nothing on the emergency frequencies. No reports of a crash. Which could be good, or... You're sure you got the message right, Flynn?"

The messenger came this morning, and he was the only one there to see it.

"I'm sure."

"It's only been a few minutes," says the woman in the passenger seat. "Maybe she just got held up."

"Or maybe she misfired."

"When was the last time somebody misfired? It doesn’t happen. Not any more."

"It happens. I've seen it."

The car falls into uneasy silence for a minute. Then, thankfully, a figure appears at the other end of the street, moving quickly towards them, and they all let out a breath in relief.

————

“Fingerprint here,” is the first thing the man in the seat next to her says, holding out a small metal plate. She obliges, and when she looks over, the screen of his laptop reads  _Traveler 5829: Arrival Confirmed_.

Another man's voice, distinctly unamused, comes through from the front seat. "You're late."

"I know. One of her - _my_ , sorry - students saw me arrive. Only just managed to convince them not to call an ambulance. I got away as soon as I could."

“Told you,” the woman says.

Then the one with the laptop pulls a large pouch out his bag and unzips a large, mean-looking injector. A few more taps on the laptop, and he turns back to her and apologetically says, “Need to fit your comm. Head up and to the right?”

Lucy does as she's asked, and even though she's waiting for it, the bite of the injector just behind her ear still stings like a bastard.

"Ow!"

“Sorry,” he frowns. “They say it hurts less if you don't see it coming, but I'm pretty sure that's bull. Can you tap it twice and say something for me?”

She nods, and does as asked. “Comm check, 5829.”

“Everybody hear her?”

The two in the front nod, and the man looks pleased with himself. “Nice and smooth. Not bad. I’m 7838. Call me Rufus.”

"Oh, you're the Seven series? Must be an important mission if they wanted you."

Rufus smiles and shrugs a little. "Well, you know, they needed a programmer..."

"Which makes you the engineer, then?" Lucy asks, directing the question at the woman sitting in front of her.

"5492. Jiya. Yeah, that's me," she says, turning. "I gotta say, I've never met a historian before. I kind of thought you'd look different."

"Sorry to disappoint. All the fancy stuff is in here." Lucy taps the side of her head, then shifts her attention to the driver. "And you're the Team Leader. 4272, right?"

He doesn’t turn, or smile, or even take off his sunglasses. He catches her eye in the rearview mirror, looks her up and down (even if she can't see his eyes, she can feel them), and then looks back at the road.

"Welcome to the 21st. Let's get to work."

————

They start driving, heading out to the edge of the city, and it’s only when the phone - her phone - buzzes that she remembers.

 _Are you on your way?_ reads the text, and Lucy sighs.

“Boyfriend?” Rufus asks.

“Fiancé, apparently,” Lucy replies, showing him the ring on her left hand. “Wasn’t in the record. Must be pretty new.”

She looks through the last few messages - typical stuff, requests to pick up milk and inane chatter, peppered through with the kind of casual declarations of love that people who think they have forever use. For a second, a sharp pang runs through her chest. Poor guy, he has no idea.

She deletes the message that was never sent and instead types out _Working late_ and sends that instead. “Guess I’ll meet him later.”

“That’s tough. Your host have much family?”

 _What about dinner? Your mom’s already here_ comes the reply, and Lucy bites the inside of her cheek.

“Uh, mom and sister,” she replies to Rufus. “All of whom I'm apparently disappointing already.”

_I’m sorry. Start without me, I’ll be there when I can._

Great. What a great start.

“I’ve got a mom and a brother,” Rufus continues, chattering away since it seems like nobody else is going to. “But, uh, Jiya and I, our hosts were... y’know, and that makes it a lot easier.”

“And all my family lives on the other side of the world,” Jiya adds. “So unless they ever come to visit, I’m good.”

"What about you, Flynn?" Rufus asks.

He hasn't said another word the whole drive - and he does the thing again, looks back at Lucy, his eyes sliding over her in the mirror.

"Lucy already knows the answer," he says, his voice flat and disinterested. Abruptly, he swings the wheel down a road she didn't even know was there, and stops. "We're here."

Flynn gets out without any more ceremony, swings the car door hard shut, and walks swiftly towards the run-down old building he's stopped them in front of.

"Of course you already knew all that. Still getting used to the historian thing," Jiya says, mostly to herself.

Lucy just smiles apologetically as Jiya gets out and follows Flynn.

"We've been with him for a month." Rufus leans over to her conspiratorially, his voice low like he's worried Flynn might hear him. "Still waiting for the thaw. He's a good team leader, but he's all Protocol One, all the time. Come on, I'll show you around inside."

————

'Inside' turns out to be an old bunker, a hangover from the Cold War which probably hasn't been occupied since not long after that. Rufus shows Lucy around, as promised, though there isn't much to see - a few bedrooms furnished with whatever hasn't rusted all the way through, a bathroom that doesn't lock, a little kitchen and living area, and then, right at the front, pride of place, is what Rufus calls 'the lab'. It's a fitting name - every square inch of the place is packed with equipment, filled on one side with computers, and on the other with workbenches. Jiya is at one of them, working on some kind of device that Lucy doesn't recognise.

"It's not much, but it's the best we could find. We're near a pretty popular trail, so we can still get messengers, but we're far enough out that nobody's going to look too hard."

"You live here?" Lucy asks. The bedrooms he showed her didn't look lived in - but Rufus walked straight past one door, leaving it tightly shut, and there's a scant collection of personal belongings scattered throughout the bunker. It's not much - a few books, a blanket over one end of the couch, dishes in the sink - but it's enough to make it clear that _somebody_ lives here.

"Flynn does," Rufus confirms. "There's room, if we need to, but Jiya and I have an apartment in the city. You can do whatever." Something clangs unhappily somewhere in the bunker, and Rufus makes a face. "Just like home, huh? Flynn did his best, and The Director sent us some tips to keep us going, but with the equipment we needed, money's been a little tight."

"Oh, yeah, I can help with that," Lucy says. "Do you have some paper? And a pen?"

Rufus nods, searching around, before coming up with a notebook and pen and passing them over. Lucy starts writing, biting her lip in concentration, stops a little to think, writes a few more things, then rips out the page and passes it to him.

"There. Just a few lottery tickets to get us some startup money. I'll handle the rest from there."

"That is so cool." Rufus looks at the paper - neatly written lines of numbers, different dates and lotteries noted next to them. He knew, of course, this is a big part of what historians do for any team, but actually seeing it in action is still incredible.

"Memorise them, then destroy that. And buy them in different stores. Get Jiya to do half. That should be fine."

"Yeah. Okay, yeah."

"They're just numbers, Rufus."

"They're not, though." He shakes his head. "Doesn't matter. I'll get used to it."

They warned her about this too. _Most of your teammates will have never met a historian before. Everybody reacts differently._ As far as that goes, Rufus' startled amazement is easy enough to deal with - but she doubts that will be the worst she comes across.

Rufus settles back in his seat. "So, you ready to get started?"

Lucy nods. "Just one thing, though. They only gave me details on the three of you, but teams are always five. Who's the last one? Soldier or Medic?"

Rufus shrugs, but just then Flynn reappears, from nowhere, walking right past them towards the lab. He doesn't bother to look at either of them, but as he passes, he says, "The Director doesn't think we need a medic. Soldier's on his way. Should be here soon."

————

Up until a few hours ago, Wyatt Logan was not having a good day.

(That was the charitable way of putting it - from an outside perspective, that bad day had lasted about a year so far, and showed no signs of letting up.)

And then, out getting lunch, he'd turned, and heard the words he'd been waiting to hear but thought would never come.

 _"Traveler 9928, report to the following coordinates immediately: 37.322345, -122.199683. Provide tactical assistance to the team indefinitely. Traveler 4272 is the lead._ "

The little girl - no more than ten - shook her head, looked quizzically up at him, and said, "Why am I here?"

"I don't know, are you lost?" he asked back, the old training kicking in without a thought. It didn't hurt them, but the messengers were prone to confusion. Usually needed a little nudge to get them to level out. "Do you know where your mom or dad is?"

"I think so," she'd said, like every other one of them he'd ever seen, then turned and walked off.

And he went straight to the car and started driving. Called his CO on the way, told them Jessica was sick and could he go home; then called Jessica and told her he would be working late.

"Again, Wyatt?"

"I know babe, I'm sorry. They just really need me on this tonight. I'll make it up to you, I swear. This weekend? We'll go to the beach."

"You've said that before, Wyatt."

"I know, I know. I'll make the time, I promise."

"You've said _that_ before too. You know, when they put you on this desk job, I thought I'd see you more, not less."

"I really am sorry, Jess. I'll call you later. Love you."

"Yeah, sure."

The line beeps and goes dead, and Wyatt thumps his head against the headrest. It had all been going so well. That first year - well, his host was even worse at being a husband than he currently is, and he came back one night, two weeks in, to a set of packed bags and divorce papers that Jessica Logan had already signed.

He could've let her go. It would have made things so much easier for him. But that wasn't how this worked, and he spent three nights with the words ringing in his ears.

_Protocol Five: In the absence of direction, maintain your host's life._

It means more than just keeping them alive. And as for  _direction -_ that is something that's been sorely lacking.

Later. He’ll fix it later. He will. For now, he just keeps driving.

————

When he gets there, there isn’t a lot to see, but the brand-new electronic keypad fitted to the rusting door tells him he’s in the right place.

“I’m looking for 4272?” he says awkwardly into the keypad, and the door buzzes and clicks open. A couple of steps, a ladder, and a heavy blast door later, he emerges into the bunker to find four faces staring back at him.

“Uh, hi, I guess,” he says, looking between all of them. “I’m Traveler 9928. I’m your soldier.”

“I’m 4272, Flynn,” one says curtly, stepping forward and pointing at the others in turn. “Rufus, our programmer, Jiya - engineer, and Lucy - historian.”

“Wyatt Logan. No medic?”

“Some of us have first aid training, it'll have to do. We needed the programmer. What do you know?”

He shrugs. “I’ve been on Protocol Five for a little while. Messenger told me to come here, so I did. Other than that, I’m in the dark.”

Something flashes across Flynn’s face, a quick flicker of recognition, of understanding, and Wyatt isn’t sure he likes that at all. It disappears, though, and Flynn beckons to them all to follow him back into the bunker, and they do.

“What do you know about Connor Mason?” Flynn asks, as they walk.

“The car guy?”

“He’s a little more than that. Lucy?”

Lucy looks a little startled, a little dazed, like her mind was somewhere else, but she launches into her speech easily enough. “Connor Mason. Quantum physicist, engineer, all-around genius. His advances in clean energy, machine learning, nanotechnology... he’s decades ahead of anyone else in the 21st. I mean, we’re talking Einstein, Newton levels of genius. Nobel Prize for sure. Or he would have been. He dies in two weeks.”

Flynn grins, and it reminds Wyatt of a shark, or a bear, something wild and predatory. “We’re going to save his life.”

————

The plan, as explained by Flynn, is simple enough: two weeks from now, Connor Mason will be working late one night when there is an explosion in his private lab. Between the blast and the subsequent fire, a large portion of Mason Industries most cutting-edge research is destroyed -and, of course, its founder is killed. All they have to do is stop that from happening, and step one of The Director’s plan is complete.

“Lucy, I want you to work with Jiya, use all the details from the historical record, figure out what caused the explosion. I want to know exactly what happened, and how we stop it."

“There were no explosives found in the investigation,” Lucy says. “Official report says it was an equipment malfunction. An accident.”

“And I'll believe that when I see it." He turns - that's another thing, too, he never stops moving, never settles on one thing for too long, like "Wyatt. I take it you're more than just a pretty face and an itchy trigger finger, yes?"

"I...uh... I've... yeah?"

"Good." Flynn gives a close-lipped smile that doesn't quite make it all the way to his eyes. "You're with me and Rufus. We've been doing a full workup on Mason. I want to know who could want him dead. So we look through his bank statements, phone records, everything. He so much as orders a pizza, I want to know about it."

"Pizza?"

"Oh, just wait, Lucy. It's pretty amazing. Actually, I could totally go for pizza now. Flynn?"

"Jiya."

"Flynn," Jiya repeats, somewhere between firm and questioning.

It must work, because Flynn says, "Fine," and only half scowls when he does. Jiya smiles triumphantly, and Wyatt takes a note of that for later. Toe-to-toe might just be the right way of dealing with him.

"Great! Lucy, what do you want? They have this thing called pepperoni, it's kind of weird, but I think you'll like it. Have you ever had meat before?"

"I can't stay, sorry. My fiancé and my mother are waiting, and I have to go, you know, meet them for the first time."

Flynn nods. "Write down what you can for Jiya to work on, and I'll drive you back to your car. When you're not maintaining your cover, I want you here. Everyone. We don't have much time."

————

An hour later, Lucy is sitting in the passenger seat as Flynn drives her back into the city.

He's not talking, which maybe isn't surprising given his general demeanour all afternoon, so it gives her a chance to look out and take in her surroundings a little. It looks so unlike the life she knows that it's hard to believe it's the same planet, even if they are a few hundred years apart.

She shouldn't be thinking that way. She's Lucy Preston now, and Lucy Preston doesn't know about any of that. Doesn't know what it's like to sit and watch the very last sliver of natural light disappear as the top of the shelter dome ices over again, or to never really know what silence sounds like because some piece of vital machinery keeping them alive is always humming, somewhere. Doesn't know a world made mostly of metal and pressed concrete slabs, where it's never dark and never really light either. Nothing she is seeing right now should surprise her, because it would not surprise Lucy.

There are just so many _colours_ , though. That's the only way she knows how to put it. Between the greens and browns of the brush, the yellowing hillsides, the jewel blue of the ocean on the horizon - these are colours that just don't exist any more, or if they do, she's never seen them. And then there's the sky - the sun is setting now, this bright orange thing that hurts to look anywhere near, but she can't seem to stop, and the sky itself goes from a bright, impossible blue to hues of orange and pink, and she has never, in her life, seen anything like it.

"Lucy?"

"Sorry?"

"I asked where your car is parked."

It's only about a half-hour's drive back to Stanford, which is good, that'll work - it won't be too difficult to explain to anyone where she's been - and already the open country is giving way to city. Not far to go.

"Oh. Um, I don't know?"

"Was that a question?"

God, this one, though. Okay, she might be as pissed off too, if she'd been given his host, but he's been here six months (he was right, earlier, she did know the answer to Rufus' question, and a lot more besides) and you'd think half a year of sunsets like this one would have helped lighten his mood at least a little.

"No," Lucy states, a little obstinately, tipping her chin up just slightly. He wants to do it this way? Fine. "But how on earth _would_ I know?"

"You're the one with a head full of historical records, not me."

"It's not... it doesn't work like that, and you know it."

No one brain could carry all of human history in it. There's a lot of information in her head, but it's all important. The Director doesn't concern itself with trivialities.

"I have no idea how it works, Lucy," he replies. "If we didn't need a historian for this mission..."

She sees it, then. Of course. How could she have missed it? The refusal to look at her, the cool detachment, how all afternoon he's always seemed to be anywhere she is not.

"I make you uncomfortable," she says, and it's just a statement of fact.

She knew - like with Rufus - that not everyone knew how to act around historians. She had just assumed - naively, apparently - that didn't apply to team leaders.

"Comfortable isn't part of the job," he says, his jaw set, teeth just slightly gritted. "We need what you know. I'm just not a fan of anyone knowing more about my future than I do."

"Yeah, well, it's not exactly fun for me either."

He looks at her then, like he hasn't actually considered that idea, and then looks resolutely at the road the rest of the way.

She expects him to kick her out and drive straight off - is actually kind of looking forward to it - but he pulls the car into the parking lot, stops, and gets out.

"This is the nearest lot to where you arrived. What kind of car is it?"

That one, thankfully, she does know. DMV records are easy enough to track down.

"Blue Ford," she says, and Flynn nods, but she watches as he mutters something under his breath. Might be because there are quite a few blue Fords in the lot. Might be because he's an asshole. Who knows. But she starts walking, digs the keys out of her bag, points in a few different directions while pressing the button, and eventually, lights flash on the far side of the lot.

"Thank _god_ ," she murmurs, and gestures to him in the right direction. When they get there, she gets in, takes in her surroundings. It takes her a full thirty seconds to find the keyhole, and Flynn pulls a face.

"Do you even know how to drive?"

"I practiced in the simulator. This is just set up a little differently."

He makes another face, and sighs. "Alright, show me."

"What?"

"I don't need you killing yourself on your way home. I need my historian. So," he gestures are the steering wheel, "show me you know what you're doing."

"Seriously?"

He stands back, puts his hands on his hips.

"Fine," Lucy says. Can’t be that difficult, surely. The simulator was fine.

She turns the key, the engine roars, and she fumbles for the gear stick. Somewhat haltingly, the car starts to move across the lot and back towards the entrance. She stops next to Flynn's car, and rolls down the window when he catches up.

“Well, you’re not going to win any awards,” Flynn says, and if she didn't know any better she might say he was actually enjoying himself. He leans forward on the car window sill, and continues, “but I think you’ll make it back alive, at least.”

“Told you.”

He pauses, like he’s considering something.

"Are you going to tell your fiancé about Wyatt?"

"What about Wyatt?"

"Well, if I was getting married, I'd want to know if my fiancée's ex-boyfriend was in town," he says, his eyebrows waggling. He's definitely enjoying it now, the bastard, leaning against the door and soaking up the surprise on her face. "What, you think I didn't see the way you reacted when he introduced himself?"

She didn't, actually. She thought she'd hidden that one well. Wyatt certainly didn't seem to notice her shock, and she'd quickly forced her features into a neutral expression. She hadn't even talked to him before she left.

"I..."

Flynn looks suddenly serious again. "I assume I don't have to remind you about Protocol Two, do I?"

_Never jeopardise your cover. Leave the future in the past._

"It won't be a problem."

"Good." He starts walking away, and then he stops suddenly and looks back, as if his programming has suddenly happened upon the long-forgotten chapter on social interactions and he's remembered how to be a human all of a sudden. "Your first night is always the worst one. It'll be better tomorrow. Goodnight, Lucy."

She pretends not to notice the fact that his SUV follows her halfway home.

————

"Hey, you got a sec?"

Wyatt is absolutely drowning in Connor Mason's bank records, documenting the kind of purchases no regular human could ever hope to make, and Rufus' interruption is a welcome one.

"Sure, just gimme a minute to get to the end of this page. Guy has more cars than I've had hot meals, it's insane."

"Alright, come over to the lab when you're done. I need to reprogram your comm to our team's frequency."

Wyatt does as asked, marking off a few things on the page, silently wondering what a gas chromatograph is and why anybody would need three of them, and wanders over to the lab. Rufus is furiously tapping away at his laptop, and Jiya is staring daggers at a circuit board through a microscope and carefully poking it with a soldering iron.

“How’s it going?”

“It’s not.” Jiya sighs and sits back. “I’m missing a component.”

“What’s it do?”

“Scanner for the equipment at Mason Industries, to see if any of it’s been tampered with. I was supposed to get the last piece a couple of days ago, but the other Traveler missed the drop-off.”

“Hey,” Rufus interjects, “sit here and tip your head that way for me, would you?”

Wyatt sits, looking mildly concerned. “That’s weird. Are you - ow, Rufus, Jesus - are you going to get another one?”

“Sorry.”

"Let's hope the Director sends another one, because there's no way this is going to work without it." Jiya sighs, sets down the iron, and switches to another tool. "At least Mason finally agreed to let me into his lab, but that means I need it soon if I’m going to plant it in there."

“You know the target?”

“Mmhmm. Rufus and I both work there. Technically, I'm an engineer and he's a programmer, but Mason likes people to, quote, 'wear a lot of hats'.”

"Which is code for, 'do as much work as humanly possible'," Rufus adds. "Try that out, Wyatt, it should be working now."

Wyatt dutifully taps on his comm, says, "Uh, testing?", and nods. "Seems to be fine. What's the range on this thing, by the way?"

"Pretty far, why?"

"Well, I guess The Director picked me for a reason, but I'm in the Army, and my station is like three, four hours from here."

Rufus' face curls into a frown. "That might be a little far."

"I figured."

Rufus thinks, taps a couple of keys, and nods.

"That's no problem. We can give you a set of orders reassigning you indefinitely. Leave me your service number, I'll hack into the database tomorrow. You can stay here."

Wyatt makes a face. "Yeah, that's gonna be a problem for my wife."

"Ah."

"Yeah. I already need to explain to her why I'm not coming home tonight. Don't think I can make a habit of it."

"Right...You said you've been on Protocol Five for a while," Rufus says, looking over the top of his screen. "How long have you been in the 21st for?"

"It's been, I don't know, like two and a half years? And I haven't had a mission for a lot of it." He says it casually enough, but he’s watching, waiting for their reactions. They're, as expected, shocked. Jiya even stops looking through her microscope long enough to catch his eyes.

"What about the rest of your team?"

"I... they..." he starts and then stops. "I'd probably better not say anything. Protocol Six, and everything."

"You must have been pretty successful in your mission, for The Director to put you all on Protocol Five that long."

"Yeah... we got it done, yeah. You ever hear of the San Diego Impact?"

"Um... no?"

"Exactly."

Rufus grins. "That's awesome, man."

"Eh, we did okay," Wyatt replies, with a hint of a smile. "Listen, I should go call Jess. You need me for anything else?"

"Not right now.

"Cool," he says, and walks off.

Jiya waits until she hears the heavy thud of the bunker door before she speaks again.

"Have you ever heard of that? Just... no more missions?"

"No." Rufus frowns. "I guess he got lucky?"

The thing is, once you're in the 21st, you're never really _done_. That part was made abundantly clear. Teams are put together for specific missions, but once that's done (and assuming the team still exists, because in this line of work both death and stopping your own birth are real and ever-present threats) you just move on to the next mission. There's always something else to be done, some new event to stop or to cause. They're firefighters, and there is always, _always_ another fire.

Except if you're Wyatt Logan, apparently. Rufus stares off into space for a few moments, a variety of unhappy expressions crossing over his face, and then, with a last grimace and snort of air, gets back to work.

————

Lucy sits in the car for a few long minutes after she makes it to the house. Just looking. It’s not that big by 21st century standards, she knows, but it’s still magnitudes bigger than anything she’s ever had. There are really only two of them living here?

A figure appears in the doorway. Male. That must be Noah, then. The famous fiancé.

“Lucy? Are you coming inside?” he calls, and she lets out a breath, steels herself, and gets out of the car.

“I’m so sorry I’m late,” she says, internally cringing that _those_ are the first words she says to him.

"Hey, it's alright, Amy and your mom and I are having fun." When she gets to the door, he leans over automatically to kiss her, and looks puzzled when she turns her head at the last moment and he only catches her cheek. "Duty calls, huh?"

"You have no idea."

He smiles, nods his head inside, and says, "Well, come on, then. We saved you some."

She takes a second before she follows him. Given she is about to be surrounded by several people who know infinitely more about her than she does, she figures she needs it. Does Lucy like red wine or white, or neither? Does she, in fact, eat meat? What seat at the dining room table is hers, what did she and her mom talk about when they spoke on the phone two days ago, how did her fiancé propose, and when, and where? None of these things are in the historical record, and she's starting to get the feeling that a lot of the things that were aren't going to be of much help.

"Lucy?" Noah calls again, and it looks like this is all the time she's going to get to prepare.

"Coming!" she calls back. She takes a deep breath and a long look at herself in the hall mirror - that will take some getting used to, for sure - and then heads in.

To borrow a phrase from the 21st - out of the frying pan, and into the fire.

————

Flynn arrives back while the rest of them are still talking; he deposits the promised pizza boxes on an empty workbench, takes one for himself.

"Eat. Then back to work."

" _What_ is that guy's problem?" Wyatt muses, when he's sure Flynn is out of earshot.

Rufus shrugs and digs into the pizza box. "I'll let you know when we figure it out."

"Hey, Wyatt, if you've been here so long, how come you aren't the team leader?"

Wyatt coughs, tries to cover it with the pizza, and plays it off with a little shrug. “That’s not my call, buddy.”

————

“Oh come on, you can’t tell me you don’t remember that!”

Lucy shrugs, and Amy Preston fixes her with an amused expression; she supposes Amy must think she's being coy, rather than she actually doesn't remember, and does her best to smile back in a way that will confirm that assumption. She thinks it works.

So far she's managed to navigate dinner and dessert mostly well - there were a couple of frowns at one or two points in the conversation, and her mother cornered her in the kitchen as they were clearing the plates and asked if she was _sure_ that she wasn't working too hard, but other than that she's made it through unscathed.

However - and she will never, ever tell him - Flynn was right. She was, quite literally, beamed back in time earlier today, and that still wasn't as draining as this. Every word out of her mouth, every little bit of body language - she has to think about all of them, wondering if this is how she spoke and moved and acted. It's like breathing manually, but for every single aspect of her existence at once.

(And really, on the list of reasons why somebody might be acting a little strange, 'died and was replaced by another consciousness from three hundred years from now' doesn't make the top thousand, so she shouldn't worry so much, but still. She does.)

"It definitely happened," Amy insists, with a raised eyebrow.

She takes a sip from her bottle - Lucy likes beer, apparently, which is... acceptable - and smiles at her sister while Noah teases her. "Pictures or it didn't happen, Ames."

Carol and Amy leave a little after that, and Lucy finally exhales when the door shuts behind them.

"Everything alright, sweetheart?" Noah asks. God, she's known him for about two hours and she already feels awful for him. He's just so earnest, so unsuspecting.

"Fine," she says, and musters a smile. "Just tired. Bed?"

————

Sometime around 1am, everyone seems to collectively decide to give up on their endeavours for the day, pack up, and head to bed. Wyatt picks the bedroom diametrically opposite from Flynn’s, as far away as he can get, and pulls the heavy door shut behind him. Jiya packs up a few things and heads up to the car, and Rufus is just about to follow her, when...

“Rufus?”

For a big guy, Flynn's movements are surprisingly cat-like, and it seems like he can almost appear from thin air sometimes.

“Jesus!" Rufus startles, then tries to pretend he didn't when he sees who it is. "What's up?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Shoot.”

“How hard would it be for you to erase somebody’s records?”

It's the way he asks that makes Rufus shiver.

Look, Rufus is glad he's not the one in charge. That's not a burden anybody needs. And everything Flynn has done so far in the weeks they've been together has been, objectively, the right decision. But there's just something about the guy - something unnerving about how single-minded he is, how he is somehow simultaneously coolly detached and uncomfortably intense. Rufus isn't sure what he was expecting in his team leader, but this wasn't it.

Plus, it hasn't escaped his notice that Flynn has waited until nobody else is around to ask for this, and that just can't be good.

“Depends what you want erased, and from where," he replies carefully. "But generally, yeah, I can do it."

“What about if I wanted you to get rid of everything? From everywhere.”

Rufus cocks an eyebrow. "I mean, in theory, sure. Who do you want me to erase?"

"Me."

He tries to stifle the surprise, but both of Rufus' eyebrows shoot up momentarily. "Okay... Yeah..." he stutters out, scrambling for something that he never quite finds. "What's the name?"

All this time, the only name he's ever been given is Flynn. There were briefings, before, but those were sparse, at best, and about 4272, not Flynn. Rufus doesn't even know if it's his first name or his last, and he decided early on it wasn't worth the limbs he would lose to ask.

"Garcia Flynn."

Alright, so last name, then.

He swallows, hard. "Give me a day?" he says, and then, against his own better judgment, adds, "Garcia."

" _Don't._ " Yup, that's exactly what he was talking about. Flynn's tone is cold and knife-sharp, and Rufus regrets saying anything immediately. "That was his name. It isn't mine."

Again, there is something about pots calling the protocol black in there, but Rufus wisely holds his tongue this time.

"I'll let you know when it's done," he says instead. Flynn relaxes, looking less like a cobra that's about to strike and more like his regular, only slightly feral self.

"Thank you, Rufus. Whatever you see, not a word to the others, clear?"

"Oh, uh. Yeah. Of course."

Flynn nods curtly, turns on his heel, and disappears back down the corridor like he was never there to begin with.

Great.

————

Lucy can't sleep. There are a variety of reasons why, ranging from the unfamiliar and distinctly odd squishiness of the bed, to the mostly-naked man sprawled out next to her. Her body is trapped between the bed and Noah’s arm, slung possessively over her hips, the air in the room is oppressively warm, and the rhythmic sound of his breathing might as well be a jet engine.

All of a sudden, the panic rises. Oh god, she’s drowning, sinking, she can’t breathe, there’s just no _air_ and she can’t hear anything over the silence and she’s sinking into the bed and everything is spinning...

Then, suddenly, she’s outside, breathing hard in the cool night air. Doesn't even remember getting out of bed.

“Lucy?”

She doesn’t hear him the first time over the pounding of her own pulse in her ears, and jumps when he reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder.

“Sorry,” Noah says, sheepishly. “Was it the nightmares again?”

Lucy takes the out as given, nods, and reaches up and cover the hand on her shoulder with her own, feels his muscles relax under her touch.

She turns to see Noah’s concerned face looking back at her, and she can tell this is the part where she is supposed to fold herself into his arms by the way his brow knits together when she doesn't.

"I'll make you some tea, then,” he says, taking his hand back.

“No, it’s fine, honey.” That one is culled from the text messages. “I’m just gonna sit up for a while. Go back to bed.”

Noah protests a little but eventually relents, and she ends up sitting on the couch - it’s soft too, why is everything in the 21st so _soft_ \- flicking through a photo album she found on the shelf. They’re happy, these two. Really happy, if the looks in their eyes are anything to go by.

It’s for a good reason, she knows. It makes sense - history is a delicate thing. The Director is advanced, but it can only take so much into account. It needs as much to stay the same as possible. If every Traveler who arrived just ran off and abandoned everything their host left behind... well, she doubts they'd have stayed hidden this long. Some still do it, but they made it clear during training what a terrible idea that is. Continuing a host’s life - loving the people they loved, wanting the things they wanted - it's how the Director reduces the number of variables. Otherwise, people don’t meet who are supposed to, or do, and everything they do could be for nothing.

That’s the theory, at least. The execution - sitting here, looking at god knows how many pictures of two people who looked at each other like they were the only other people in the world - is a little different.

She wonders what his life was like after her. It’s the one thing they’re not allowed to know, and it makes sense, but she imagines it's frustrating enough _without_ having the rest of history riding shotgun in your brain. That blank spot, that gap in her memory - it's ever-present, and infuriating.

She’s still sitting there when the sun rises and she realises she needs to get ready for work. Dr Preston has an early class today. Sleep will have to wait.

————

The messenger comes in the morning, just as Jiya is waiting for Rufus to get into the car.

"Rufus, come on!" Every morning. Every morning this happens. She likes him well enough, which is good since they're stuck together, but he is permanently running five minutes late. The same, all through training, and now for the rest of her life, apparently.

Then, she turns, and:

_"Traveler 5492. Finish the device as soon as possible. By any means necessary."_

————

"He said 'by any means necessary', Flynn, I think that was pretty clear."

"Alright. I’m standing in front of it now. Tell me what I’m looking at.”

There are certain aspects of having to maintain a cover that are, well, less than ideal. Mason Industries is one of those companies that offers its employees so-called 'perks' like breakfast, lunch and dinner - because they fully expect you to be there for all of them. Which makes it difficult to take part in anything extracurricular.

Right now, for example, Jiya is locked in a bathroom stall, her laptop balanced on her knees while she talks tersely to Flynn through her comm and hopes nobody else comes in.

She can pretend to be on her cell phone, once in a while, but if Connor Mason catches one of his employees on a personal call, he's been known to pluck the phone out of their hands and carry on an animated conversation with the person on the other end. If there's nobody on the other end - well, that would be bad. And in any case, this isn't a conversation that she wants to be overheard. By anyone.

Protocol One is her guide. The mission comes first. Always. But if she gets fired from the company she won’t be able to get into Mason’s lab and plant the equipment that's going to save his life, so, at least until then, she has to keep up the appearance of working here. And honestly, there’s something about working here, for him, that she likes. The hours suck, and Mason's mood is a moving target, but still. In the right circles, even though he died young, Connor Mason is a legend - the idea of working with him, of seeing what he does with the rest of the life they’re going to give him, isn’t a bad one.

That's for another day, though.

“It's the piece on the right-hand side of the circuit board."

"There isn't anything on the right-hand side."

"Exactly. The missing piece goes in that space. I’ve been looking, and I think there’s one company in Palo Alto who’re making something that might work. But they’re not going to just give it to you.”

“That’s what we have a soldier for.” Flynn pauses. “Wyatt, patch in, we need you on this.”

Seamlessly, Wyatt’s voice starts speaking in her ear. Still not used to that.

“What’s up? We're stealing something?”

“Solus Technologies. They’re partway through development on some sensor technology. If you get me their prototypes, I can make it work.”

“What’s it look like?”

"Rufus got me some security footage. Looks like they keep the prototypes down by the labs. You're looking for anything labelled Project Eos. It'll be pretty small."

“Alright. Stay on comm, We’ll let you know when we’re in."

Jiya nods, and taps the comm to disconnect. Back to work.

————

Over in the bunker, things are already moving.

Flynn taps at his comm again and says, "Lucy, we have a mission, we'll pick you up in ninety minutes." No room for anything other than assent. She doesn't respond, but he hears the tell-tale tapping noise that means she got the message and can't talk right now, and that's enough. Wyatt is already looking through their gear and picking out what they'll need, he notes with surprise - maybe not such a lost cause after all.

Another tap at his comm. "Rufus?"

"Yeah boss?"

"The thing we talked about last night. How's it coming?"

"The virus is moving through the databases now. It'll still take a few more hours. You could have told me how much there was, it's taking me a little longer than I expected."

"We don't have a few hours," Flynn says, skating right past the other part. "We have a mission."

Rufus sighs heavily. "Flynn, you know, I don't have to tell you how terrible an idea that is right now. And anyway, you know, I can delete all this, but if somebody recognises you, there's nothing I can do about that."

"Yes, Rufus, I'm aware. It is what it is. We're going into a company in the Valley, not the Pentagon."

"Security?"

"Probably."

"Well, just... try not to get caught on tape, okay? At least for the next like, six hours."

"I'll do my best."

"In fact, you know what? Give me the address, I'll knock out the cameras for you."

"Thank you, Rufus."

————

Getting into Solus Technologies proves more difficult than first thought. The guard at the desk flat-out turns them away - they don't have an appointment, or a pass, or really any good reason to be there at all, since they had all of an hour to prep for this one.

Just as they're about to give up on the diplomatic option - okay, just as Flynn is, the muscles in his jaw twitching as he mentally tallies the number of bullets he has against the probable number of guards - a man arrives at the desk at a full sprint, looking a little ragged and breathing hard, and smiles at them.

"Are you guys the clean-up crew?" he asks, when he's stopped and caught his breath a little. "We blew a coolant pipe over in Engineering. Big mess. Lot of water damage."

Flynn nods. "That's what I've been saying to your friend here, but he still won't let us through."

"That's not..." the guard starts to say, but the other man cuts him off.

"Hank, let them in, would you?"

"They're not on the list, Mr. Baumgardner. You know I gotta..."

"My authority, Hank. Come on."

"Every second another piece of equipment dies, Hank, are you gonna pay for it? Those robot arms are pricey." That's Wyatt, standing at the back and doing his best impression of a bored contractor.

It must work, because Hank _hrmphs_ , presses a button, and the security gate opens.

"You're a good man, Hank! Come on guys, follow me."

When they get out of sight of the guard, he turns and sticks out his hand.

"I'm Traveler 3283. You can call me Dave."

"I'm 5829," Lucy says, and she can feel Wyatt looking at her, but she doesn't have time for that right now. "How did you know we were here?"

"I'm sitting in my office ten minutes ago, and my boss' daughter comes in and turns messenger. _Assist 4272 and his team_. Once I figured out it was you guys, I came right down. You're here for the sensor, right?"

“We are... How’d you know?”

“It’s my mission. That tech...it’s the only thing this company’s ever gonna make that’s worth anything to anyone. I guess you could say I’ve been waiting for you.”

“He’s right.” Lucy nods. “The sensors detect minute changes in movement, air pressure, vibrations, chemical composition - about a year from now, the military’s going to try and buy the technology for their missile defence system. A few other countries catch wind, and eventually it’s stolen. Never seen again. Without the defence system, when the war started... well, you all went to history class.”

“Ah, you brought your historian.” Dave smiles, and gestures for them to follow. “It’s this way. And it’s my job to make sure that doesn’t happen. There've been three attempts to steal it already - I've stopped them all. Maybe if that missile defence system actually works, the war won’t even happen, y'know?”

"But you'll give it to us?" Flynn asks, sounding mildly suspicious.

"Hey, what The Director wants, The Director gets, right? There are two prototypes. The Director wouldn't have sent you here if I couldn't spare one of them. They're in the labs. It's not far."

Dave starts to stride away, and Flynn keeps pace with him as they weave through the building. As they get further away, Wyatt hangs back.

“Lucy...” he says, under his breath, and she turns minutely towards him as she keeps walking.

“I know. Just... not now.”

————

Dave leads them through a maze of corridors and all the way into the bowels of the building. Flynn notes the way the simple swipe-card doors are gradually replaced by keypads, then fingerprint scanners, then iris scanners - whatever else they're keeping down here, they certainly don't want visitors.

Dave eventually stops outside a nondescript door with all four of the aforementioned security measures, and nods.

"This is it."

It takes a second for Dave to go through all of the security, but he opens the door and ushers them inside. It's a small room, just about big enough for all of them, and its only other occupant is a metal shelf holding two black plastic briefcases labelled, as promised, _Project Eos_.

"Luckily they don't have them out for testing today," Dave says, motioning at the briefcases. Flynn walks over and looks at them for a second. "You should have a little bit of time before they realise it's missing."

Something isn't sitting right. It just all seems just too easy. He lifts the case off the shelf, and...

Immediately, an alarm sounds. Not a small one - this is almost painfully loud, and seems to be coming from every angle at once.

Yeah, that's more like it.

"Did you do this?"

"Wasn't me! They must have changed something without telling me!"

Oh, fuck. _Fuck_. Of course they didn't trust the guy who somehow magically stopped three separate theft attempts, _of course_ they thought it was him, how fucking stupid...

"Is there another way out of here?" he asks, over the alarm noise, which seems to be getting louder. He casts his eyes over, and Wyatt has already drawn his gun.

"Yeah!" Dave shouts back, after a second's thought. "There's a back exit, if you can find it. It's the other way from where we came. Go now, I'll buy you some time."

Flynn does not need to be told twice. He passes Lucy the case and pulls out his own gun.

He tilts his head. “This way?”

“Yeah... and you’re gonna have to hit me.”

Flynn thinks on it for a second, which is basically all the time they have - there are footsteps and shouting getting closer - and, without much warning, whacks Dave in the side of the head with the butt of his pistol.

Dave staggers, catching himself against the wall, blood already starting to run down his temple. “Son of a...” He shakes his head. “Yeah, that’ll do. Go!”

They do. Almost make it, too, even though the corridors are if possible even more twisty and difficult to navigate on this side of the building. The shouting is getting louder and louder behind them, there must be a door here _somewhere_ , goddammit, where is the fucking _door_ -

And then Wyatt slams open a fire door, they are finally outside, and somehow, once again face-to-face with Dave Baumgardner, who is pointing a gun straight at them.

"Just put it down," Dave says. Flynn isn't sure the others see it - he almost doesn't, and spends a long moment silently cursing in his head - but Dave makes a tiny movement with his elbow, and when he follows it, he sees them - more guards, approaching quickly, watching everything.

He understands. Dave and Flynn lock eyes and Dave nods, minutely.

"For what it's worth, I'm sorry," Flynn says, and before anyone can stop him, he shoots.

Then, they run.

————

Wyatt slides into the back of the car and spends a large portion of the drive back to the bunker fuming silently in his seat. That is nothing, though, compared to Lucy. She hasn't said a word so far, but the one time he caught her eye it was like she was looking right through him. Even now, he can see her from his vantage point in the back seat - staring out the window, her knuckles white where they're gripped tightly around the handle of the case.

 _5829_. Hearing those numbers again was like a mallet to the back of the head. Two and a half years. He really thought they'd never see each other again. That was how it always was. What were the odds she'd end up here?

"He didn’t have to die." Lucy's voice is tiny, but made of steel, and despite himself, Wyatt smiles.

“That wasn't up to you.” Flynn, in a gesture that seems to be common to him, tightens his grip on the wheel and stares straight forward.

"He was one of us."

"His cover was blown."

"What about Protocol Three, huh? Don't take a life, don't save a life? That mean anything to you?"

"I know what Protocol Three is."

The man is almost robotically calm, and if it were anyone who Wyatt could reasonably identify as a human being, he'd say he was in shock. Flynn, however, by all accounts so far, is just Like That.

"He still didn't have to die," Lucy says, and then nobody says anything for the rest of the trip.

————

Jiya, when she arrives, is so delighted to have the part she needs that she skates right over the simmering tension and into the lab and gleefully takes the case out of Flynn's hands.

"How it'd go?" she asks, already past him and moving towards the lab.

Flynn shrugs and says, "Fine," and goes back to the stack of papers he's been steadily working his way through.

For whatever reason, this is what breaks Wyatt. It might just be the way he's sitting, one of his feet propped up on one of the chairs, like what happened this afternoon doesn't bother him at _all._

Say what you like about Wyatt (and many have), he's never, ever killed a fellow Traveler. Let alone acted like it wasn't a big deal.

_"Fine?"_

He doesn't even look up. Yeah, that's definitely an infuriating habit. He just slowly, deliberately turns a page and repeats, "Yes. Fine."

"Jesus, Flynn, if that's what you call fine I'd hate to see what a bad day for you looks like."

Flynn puts down the papers.

"None of the team were injured. We got what we were looking for. And we got away. That's a successful mission."

"Are you for real?" He can feel it, feel the anger rising, and a lot of it has been sitting for a lot longer than today but damn if this doesn't feel like the right time to start letting some of it out. "You _killed_ another Traveler. One of us. Who the hell knows what happens to his mission now?"

Even Jiya, who has been steadfastly ignoring this little _tete-a-tete_ from her position over in the lab, looks dismayed at that.

"His mission isn't my problem. _Ours_ is, and we completed it. He knew from the second he gave us that device what was going to happen. You think I liked doing that? That I don't know what it _means_? I make those decisions so the four of you don't have to."

Somehow they're almost toe-to-toe now. Flynn has barely raised his voice, but he almost doesn't have to. His sheer presence is enough, and that's even more infuriating.

"This is _my team_ , Logan. I was put in charge for a reason. The Director..."

"The Director _doesn't care_! About any of us! Haven't you figured that out by now?" He's yelling now, and it feels good, it feels like a pressure valve released. Nineteen fucking months, he's waited. He gave up after three. And now, what? He's supposed to just fall back in line like nothing happened - like he wasn't _abandoned_ here with nothing, not a word, not a single messenger - and take orders from _this guy_?

Fuck. That.

"Get out," Flynn says, so quietly.

"What?"

"I don't need a soldier who can't follow orders. Get the hell out."

Flynn turns and strides away, and the next sound is the heavy door of his bedroom thudding shut. That leaves Wyatt standing there, gaping like a fish at the abruptness of his departure, until Rufus ventures over and claps him on the shoulder.

"C'mon, I've got some stuff you can help me out with over here. Don't go, Flynn'll be fine - later."

————

Lucy doesn't bother to knock on the door to Flynn's room, just opens it and steps inside. The whole bunker has the sort of spartan, functional aesthetic she associates with the shelters back home, and his room is, if possible, even more so. Bed, chair, desk - nothing that looks remotely comfortable or anything less than entirely necessary. He’s sitting in a chair at the far end of the room, and he looks up when she enters but stays seated.

"Yes, by all means, come in," he says, putting down the stack of papers he's holding. It looks like a set of phone or bank records, something as equally long and boring as the set he left in the kitchen, and she remembers what Rufus told her - was it really only yesterday? _All Protocol One, all the time._ "Though if you're here about this afternoon, I'm not interested."

"Well, that's too bad," Lucy says, taking a step towards him and letting the anger tinge her voice. She won't shout - because that tactic went so well when Wyatt tried it - but he needs to know, and she's already decided he's not someone with whom she's going to pull her punches. She's known him all of thirty hours and she can already tell he's going to need it. "Because we all have a mission here, and we're never going to make it if you keep steamrolling your way through the 21st like you did today."

"I told you, Lucy, it's not up for discussion. I made the right choice, and you know that."

He's... not angry, exactly. Frustrated. Ruffled. She gets the distinct impression he wasn’t expecting this much pushback.

"Do I? How would I know that? You just _did_ it."

"His cover was blown," Flynn says, his tone like he's trying to explain something he thinks should be readily apparent, "and he knew it. If they'd taken him in, he'd be jeopardising the rest of his team, and his mission. Everyone he'd ever spoken to would have been a suspect. Now, it just looks like he's the idiot who forgot to check our credentials. Which is exactly why he gave me the signal to do it in the first place."

For just a moment, that throws her. She thinks back, but all she can see is Dave falling to his knees, the half-second that seemed to stretch on for eternity before the blood started spreading across his chest and they bolted while they still had the chance, Wyatt firing wildly behind him to keep the other guards away.

She shakes her head, trying to get the image to leave, and says incredulously, "Why wouldn't you just _say_ that?"

"We all have our jobs on this team, Lucy. Mine is to make the hard decisions that keep the rest of you safe. Part of yours is to trust that I know what I'm doing."

"How long do you think this team is going to last, like that? Trust is _earned_ , Flynn. I mean, you know Rufus is terrified of you, right? And don't even get me started on Wyatt."

He has the good grace to look slightly cowed, but it doesn’t last.

"They don't have to like me. That's not a part of the job."

"Wouldn't it just be easier, though? We're not allowed to contact other teams -"

" - Protocol Six is there for a reason -"

"So, the five of us? We're it. We're all we’ve got. Would it be so bad to go through this not wanting to kill each other?”

She may well be hitting her head off the brick wall that is this man, but she’s not done yet.

"It just... it bothers me,” she continues, a calculated move, “when I know you can be so much _better_ than this."

The look he gives her could cut glass, and he says, with a kind of cold finality, "You don't know me, Lucy."

"That's the thing though, Flynn. I do. I know everything there is to know about you. And I know you don't like that, but it’s not going to change.”

She thinks he might actually growl at that. But The Director wouldn’t have given her all this knowledge about him if she wasn’t supposed to use it for something.

“I know you didn’t want your host, and why. I know about Shelter 41. I’m sorry. But I also know you’re the only reason anyone made it out of there alive. Do you know how much I wanted to meet you, when they told me? But I guess you left that part of you back home.”

The look on his face is grim and crestfallen, staring at a spot on the concrete floor somewhere near her feet. Given the length of the silence that follows, she turns to leave.

"He killed the girl first," he says, quietly, his voice thick, and her hand freezes on the door handle. "She was two months older than my daughter. Did you know that?"

"Yes," she says softly, not turning. He doesn't ask which part, because she knows both.

"The Director should have just let him die," Flynn continues, more than she was expecting. "It would have been more than he deserved. And instead I get to wear his face for the rest of my life. I have to live in this body knowing what it's done. So, whatever I have to do to make sure this isn't for _nothing_..."

She turns to look back at him, and it's the wrong thing. He's sitting there, looking absolutely devastated, staring down at his hands like he can still see the blood on them. When he sees her looking his face hardens back over.

"Protocol Two. We shouldn't be talking about this," he says, any trace of the vulnerability from moments before gone. "Do you need someone to take you home?"

It's that same flat voice he used the first time he spoke to her, and it doesn't sound any better now she knows what's behind it.

"No, it's... Wyatt's going to drive me."

Flynn's eyebrows raise, the sarcastic mask fully back in place. He leans back in his chair, picks the stack of papers back up. "Well, you shouldn't keep Sergeant Haircut waiting on my account."

She sighs, and shuts the door behind her when she goes.

————

The first part of the car ride is mostly silent, and Lucy starts to wonder if she should get used to this - just driving along while everybody thinks what they won't say. There's really no way to prepare for the reality of life in the 21st - this, she's learning rapidly - but she wonders if all teams are this discordant at the beginning.

"Hey, are you alright?"

It's been a long time, and who knows what he's managed to change while he's been here, and yet, somehow, Wyatt is almost exactly as she remembers him. The good and the bad. His host even looks a little like him.

"I'm fine," she says, which is patently untrue but she says it anyway, "I just didn't think it would all start happening this fast."

"Yeah, I know," Wyatt says, sneaking a glance at her like he's been doing all afternoon. "We could talk. I mean, we should, I guess. If you want."

She thinks back to when they met - the timing is difficult to figure out, thank you time travel, but it must have been four years ago, now. They were part of the same intake for the Training Program, one particularly bad year where almost two-thirds of the volunteers washed out, one way or another, and by the end there were so few of them left that practically all they had was each other. Love is probably too nice a word for what they were - it was more desperate, more fearful, the kind of relationship that would never have survived outside the walls of the Training Center - but it was something they both needed. And then he left, assigned to a team at last, and she was on her own again.

The thing is: he's the same. She's just not sure she is.

Wyatt twists the wheel to turn a corner and the light catches on something on his hand; it takes her a second to figure out what it is.

"You're married." It's a statement, and more for herself than anyone else. She shouldn't be surprised - she's engaged, after all, they've all got lives they're supposed to be living - but she is.

Wyatt takes his left hand off the steering wheel like he's just remembered the ring is there; he flexes his fingers a few times. "I - yeah. She... Jessica. Her name's Jessica."

Even like this, there's an unmistakable warmth to his tone when he says her name.

"You're happy?"

"We...um, it's tough sometimes but... yeah. Yes."

They lapse back into silence for a long minute.

"Lucy..."

"It's fine, Wyatt. Protocol Two."

The silence returns, nothing but the sound of the wheels on the road, and Wyatt stops trying to look at her.

————

By the time he's dropped Lucy off and turned the car back in the direction of home, Wyatt just mostly really wants to go to sleep. It might only have been two days, but it feels like weeks since he was approached by that messenger and this all started. He's achy and exhausted and Flynn is an asshole and _Lucy is here_ , and the miles blur as he drives until suddenly he's almost home and he can barely remember how he got there.

He's not sure how he's going to convince Jess that they need to move closer to San Francisco, but actually, she'll probably end up going for it. Rufus says money won't be an issue soon, so they can get someplace nice, and hey, his enlistment is almost up anyway, and Jess would be ecstatic if he told her he wasn't planning to re-enlist this time.

(He'll be a soldier all his life, one way or another. 9928 might not have a choice about that, but Wyatt does, and he's taking it with both hands.)

He pulls into the driveway a little after midnight. There's only the hall light on when he draws up to the house, and he slips in the door as quietly as he can and up to the bedroom. The cot he slept on in the bunker last night was hilariously uncomfortable, and he's been dreaming of his real bed all the way home.

"Wyatt?"

"Hey," he whispers into the darkness. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake you."

"You didn't, it's alright. You're home?"

"I'm home."

He sighs as he steps out of his clothes and crawls into the bed. Jessica curls into his side automatically, like a reflex.

“I’m glad you’re back.”

“Me too,” he replies, wrapping his arms around her. “Listen, I’ve been given this new assignment at work...”

“Mmm...” she murmurs, and when he looks down her eyes are already half closed. He smiles down at her and settles back into the pillows, shuts his eyes.

“Never mind. We’ll talk about it tomorrow.”

Not two minutes later, the sound crying echoes through the room, and Jessica groans.

“It’s okay, I’ll go,” Wyatt says, and levers himself back out of bed.

So. Here’s the thing. He really, really didn’t think he was ever coming off Protocol Five. And if The Director had abandoned him here to live out the rest of his life, then why should he be bound by its rules anymore?

_Protocol Four: Do not reproduce._

Charlotte Logan, seven months old and apparently very unhappy about something in her young life right at this moment, looks up at him from her crib, tears in her blue eyes. She looks a lot like her mother, but the eyes are his and no mistake. He picks her up and settles her on his hip, bouncing her up and down. She starts to quiet down almost immediately, and he smiles. This part, he can do.

“Hey, Charlie, what’s up?” The baby burrows her head into his shoulder, her cries reduced to little hiccups. “Yeah, that’s right, Daddy’s here now. Shh. Shh. Everything's gonna be fine."

So. Yeah. This could be a problem.


End file.
